It's been a testing week for Liverpool. Last weekend they lost 1-0 at home to Aston Villa, and then in midweek they only scraped a 2-1 win against relative minnows Ludogorets in the Champions League. They were then posed with the tricky test of a trip to Upton Park to face West Ham United - and it's a test they failed.

The first ten minutes were shambolic from a Reds point of view; Winston Reid gave the Hammers the lead inside 75 seconds, and Diafra Sakho chipped Simon Mignolet to make it two with just seven minutes on the clock. Raheem Sterling pulled one back just before the half hour mark, and whilst Liverpool should've pushed on in the second half, they couldn't break Sam Allardyce's men down and Morgan Amalfitano hit the killer goal in the 88th minute.

On a tough night for Liverpool, here are the player ratings for Brendan Rodgers' side...

Simon Mignolet 4 - The Belgian stopper is often defended by some Reds fans, but he was culpable for the first two goals after firstly failing to come off his line to deal with a high ball and secondly being out of position for Sakho's lob.

Javi Manquillo 5 - struggled early on and was sacrificed after just 20 minutes in order for Liverpool to play three centre backs.

Dejan Lovren 4 - continues his shaky start since joining from Southampton. Lovren occasionally struggled with the pace of Valencia and was questionable positionally - much to the annoyance of Liverpool fans.

Martin Skrtel 5 - much like Lovren, Skrtel couldn't handle the movement of the West Ham attack - pairing the two of them was a bad decision from Rodgers.

Alberto Moreno 6 - he wasn't totally dreadful in Liverpool's back four, and given how bad the others were, that's actually something of a bright spark. Still more comfortable going forward than defending and has much to learn.

Lucas Leiva 4 - touched the ball just 25 times in a fairly anonymous display before Rodgers brought Adam Lallana on at half time for the Brazilian.

Steven Gerrard 4 - Poor in possession, didn't have enough of an impact protecting the defence and looked a yard off the pace. Far from his best display.

Jordan Henderson 5 - Worked hard and offered energy at times but much like Gerrard, he had an off day in comparison to his usual displays.

Raheem Sterling 7 - took his goal superbly and was Liverpool's sole shining light of a dreadful game. Offered pace and direction, but few seemed on his wave length.

Fabio Borini 5 - handed a bizarre start despite Liverpool trying to sell him less than a month ago, and it was unsurprisingly a bad decision. The Italian worked hard but offered nothing in the way of a goalscoring threat.

Mario Balotelli 5 - starved of service, Balotelli had one big flash point with Hammers goalkeeper Adrian, but touched the ball just 36 times as he failed to really get himself involved in the action.

Subs:

Mamadou Sakho 5 - still lacks confidence in possession and looks shaky, and did little to stabilise a porous Liverpool defence.

Adam Lallana 6 - looked good in the second half, getting on the ball and looking to create. Certainly made a case for a start against Everton next weekend.

Rickie Lambert 5 - came on with 15 minutes to play but couldn't really impact the game in the Liverpool attack.

Olly Dawes

Olly is a Sports Management graduate and aspiring journalist, with most of his work surrounding football or NFL. He has formed two of his own sites, as well as contributing to a number of others before starting with Here Is The City.